Shortfall prevents expansion of CTA, Metra, Pace, officials say

When a task force appointed by Gov. Pat Quinn issues its long-awaited report on mass transit reform later this month, it is expected to recommend ways to tackle what officials say is a multibillion-dollar shortfall in funding.

Just as the state is confronted by an ever-growing pension debt, the CTA, Metra and Pace face a ballooning backlog of equipment, infrastructure and maintenance costs that drain money from expanding the transit system, experts say.

Among a trove of documents being studied by task force members are two recent studies — one from the Regional Transportation Authority and another from the Metropolitan Planning Council, a well-respected civic think tank — that argue that the funding shortfall needs to be addressed before the Chicago-area transit system can grow.

The backlog also stands in the way of doubling transit use by 2040, a goal set by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning that has been cited by the task force.

The RTA analysis determined that the CTA, Metra and Pace together will need $33.4 billion over the next 10 years to keep the current transit system in good condition and operating relatively well.

Most of that money, $20 billion, represents the cost of unmet needs — like track and equipment replacement, bridge repairs and station improvements — that have accumulated over the years, the report estimates.

The Metropolitan Planning Council, meanwhile, found that area's spending on mass transit lags in comparison with other U.S. and foreign cities — and as a result, the area's economic competitiveness will suffer from a lack of growth and inability to attract new jobs.

"In sum, the Chicago region is underinvesting in both the provision of day-to-day transit and upgrades necessary for the future," the planning council found.

Officials say that doesn't bode well for putting Chicago's transit system on par with other major cities, selling points for helping compete for such events as the Super Bowl — as New York recently hosted — or even the 2024 Summer Olympics, as some are suggesting.

"In order to have a world-class system, we need more resources on the operating side and more resources on the capital side," task force member Carole Brown said last week. Brown is a former RTA board member and before that was chairwoman of the CTA.

The Chicago area is the nation's third-largest transit market, and its system of buses and trains provides about two million rides a day. But the CTA and Metra have some of the oldest equipment and infrastructure in the nation, according to the RTA's recently released capital asset condition assessment.

For example, many of Metra's rail cars date to the 1950s and '60s, although they have been refurbished since then.

In addition to the $20 billion backlog, the transit agencies will need an additional $13.4 billion over the next 10 years for replacement and repair of equipment and infrastructure, the RTA report found.

Both the backlog and the 10-year needs keep accumulating, the RTA said, with the total increasing nearly five percent since 2012.

But the capital revenue from Washington and Springfield has not kept up with those needs, however. The transit agencies can only count on getting $600 million to $700 million a year from state and federal programs to pay for these capital needs, and that amount is not expected to change, the RTA said.

"In fact, without adequate funding, our system's infrastructure will move further from that goal (of good condition) and will continue to deteriorate," the report said.

Farebox money barely covers half of day-to-day transit operating costs. Only in the last couple of years have the transit agencies managed to stop diverting capital funds to pay for everyday operations, officials say.

As the provider of more than 80 percent of the public transit trips in the six-county area, the CTA accounts for about $12.9 billion of the backlog and $8.5 billion of the 10-year needs.

Most of the CTA's overdue needs are railroad rolling stock, stations, facilities and tracks, the RTA report found.

This month, the CTA will start rebuilding the 30-year-old O'Hare branch of the Blue Line at a cost of $492 million.

Metra's biggest deferred and future capital needs total nearly $10 billion, the report said, and include rehabilitation of bridges and maintenance facilities.

The analysis, however, did not include one of the biggest fiscal challenges facing Metra: the installation of a high-tech safety system known as Positive Train Control designed to automatically slow or stop trains when a collision or derailment is imminent.

Positive Train Control will cost about $235 million, Metra estimates. Even though Congress ordered the nation's major railroads to install the system, it provided little if any federal funding.

Of the three transit agencies, Pace has the smallest chunk of capital funding backlog and 10-year needs, totaling $2.1 billion.